Saturday, August 13, 2011

Residing with Relatives

My beautiful four year old son is spending the month with his grandparents in South Carolina. I won't see him again until the end of the month when I pick him up. it's a 13 hour drive one way so it's not like I can meet him for an afternoon of fun and games.
I can't even begin to imagine my little Gregory living with anyone but me and his daddy yet some of my ancestors actually lived with different family members for one reason or another.
I first discovered ancestors residing with relatives when I looked up my maternal grandmother, Eleanor's name in the 1930 U.S. federal census and found her living with her maternal grandmother, Theresa. At first I was so puzzled as to why MaMa, at age 12 was living with her grandmother and two uncles. Where were her parents and younger brothers? I don't know when she moved on with her grandmother or how long she stayed. I think MaMa moved in with her grandmother after the death of her younger sister three years earlier, in 1927. her baby brother, William was born the day after Dorothy died. I don't think MaMa moved in with her grandmother for financial reasons and she was old enough to help with the younger children.
MaMa was 9years old when her sister dies and her brother was born. her brother Daniel (Danny) was 8 and Samuel (Sammy) was either 7 or 6. I seriously believe that my great-grandmother Josephine was not emotionally stable to care for her newborn and three other children after losing her youngest so tragically. I wrote about Dorothy in an earlier post. I can't find Josie, her husband, or the three boys in the 1930 census. Maybe their names were misspelled or they never completed the census. I have no idea where they were in 1930.

I can't focus on blogging or research now because I miss Gregory so much and can't even think straight. I'll be seeing my baby in less than two weeks. XOXOX ♥ ♥ ♥

3 comments:

One of my ancestors at age 8 was living with his grandmother, but I couldn't find his parents or brother. Only by typing in misspelled names into Ancestry.com did I find his brother at the other grandparents' house. I finally found their mother in the next census -- widow. A little more digging on Ancestry and I found the dad's death information. They had been married only 5 years when he died of a kidney disease.